Rising college enrollment isn't as good as it seems

As with many of my opinion columns that have been published, this latest one too draws on quite a few of my blog posts.  Blogging has in many ways helped me with the learning about issues and, of course, writing about them as well.

The title of the post here is the title of the op-ed in the Statesman Journal (August 12, 2011)

Enrollment growth in Oregon's community colleges and universities is not necessarily a healthy sign as the Statesman Journal's report on July 31 implies.

Economic recessions are always correlated with increases in the number of students in higher education. During recessionary times, there is not much of a job creation and, therefore, the unemployed and underemployed labor tend to fall back on college education as a way to keep themselves busy and to improve their chances of meaningful employment as the economy recovers.

Economists tell us that the Great Recession ended in June 2009 with growth in the economy over consecutive quarters after an 18-month downturn. However, a significant number of Americans are yet to see that growth translated into jobs, which is the only way their own "personal recessions" will come to an end.

Thus, the lingering 9 percent-plus unemployment means that some of them take up college courses. Graduating high school seniors, on the other hand, realize the stiff competition even for the minimum wage jobs and, they too are more likely to try to beat the odds by signing up for college.

Therefore, the record enrollment level is far from any celebratory milestone, per se.

Instead, we ought to be acutely worried that joblessness might be driving quite a few Oregonians to college, even at the risk of being overqualified at the end.

This unemployment scenario turns even gloomier when I hear from students who completed their undergraduate degrees within the past few years but are yet to find any productive employment. Recently received emails included one from a former student who wants my advice on certificate programs that she could do in order to get an entry-level job.

Further, studies show that students who graduate during recessions almost always are never able to catch up with the earnings lost because of unemployment and underemployment.

Merely increasing the numbers of people going to college is, thus, no panacea for the short-term economic crisis, nor to necessarily provide society with a robust economic future.

To make things worse, public colleges and universities are also keen on maximizing enrollment, and even aggressively sell themselves not only within Oregon, but also in the other 49 states and the rest of the world. As the Pulitzer-winning David Leonhardt observed, a big problem with higher education was "the focus on enrollment rather than completion, the fact that colleges are not held to account for their failures."

Imagine if we ran hospitals based on the number of patients admitted and not on the more important metrics of survival and health of those admitted. We would be aghast, and rightfully so, at the failures in the medical system, more so when it is so darned expensive. Higher education is, unfortunately, not that different from an expensive health care industry where the patients are not being well served.

It is past the critical hour that we asked ourselves whether society ought to promote 16 years of education without understanding the marginal costs and benefits of a population supersaturated with undergraduates and doctorates

I wonder what the comments will be this time around--from my esteemed faculty colleagues that is :)

BTW, want an example of how colleges aggressively sell themselves their degree programs?  The following is an ad that appeared when I was reading a piece at Economix.  Higher education has become an industry that pushes college degrees like how spammers sell Viagra :)